The Imp is driving me mad this morning. I think it's because she found a long-lost toy, a Christmas tree ornament of a sheep. When I went back to bed this morning after taking my meds (I don't work Weds) she brought her sheep to savage on top of me. She has twice this morning made the excrutiating noise that is her all-purpose vocalization, meaning "I am not happy." Usually when I tell she can't do something she dearly wants to do like jump to the top of the shower screen at an inconvenient moment, or get into the rubbish bin, she will look at me and make this gut-wrenching squall. So this morning I am being presented with the sheep at every moment, no matter what I'm doing (unloading the washing machine, etc.) Right now she is sitting at my feet to the right and the sheep is to my left and she is debating pouncing on it.

One of the lists I belong to has been on a discussion of woolen vs worsted and long draw. Since I am self taught, I learned what works for me and produces the kind of yarn I like to knit with which turns out to be semi-worsted. Inch-worm type drafting and no spin entering the drafting triangle. Nice fluffy yarns are warm and can show off some kinds of fibers but I am a fan of Aran knitting and textures that need a yarn to show off their ins-and-outs so woolen is not my preferred spinning method. I have done it when I finally spun my first black Shetland (taking a photo of black wool is a bit hard), but when I'm spining 4' long fine fibres, worsted is the way to go. I still can't get my head around long draw but I think I'd have to see someone do it.

There's also a discussion of how many fleeces is too many. Many of the spinners on this list are far more advanced than I, have been at it longer, and do more of it than I have time to. So many talk about having more than 10 whole fleeces in their stash, which makes mine seem puny. I still am not sure whether you are supposed to wash the fleece before long-term storage as I have seen firm "rules" saying both yes and no. I only have one unwashed fleece and it was purchased 2 weeks ago so maybe I still count as a newbie. We'll see after we go to the Wool show in Bendigo in July. I can really fall in love with wool but I need to find an outlet for the excess. Maybe an eBay sale would work if I can't knit it all. So why am I blogging instead of doing something fibre-related?

Health note: the only medical advice my rheumatologist gave me was that I could safely increase the dosage of one of my meds to reduce pain. So I am doing such, but the down side is that it makes me extremely drowsy unless I am doing something that totally occupies my brain. So yesterday I fell asleep during the news on TV and the day before I fell asleep reading my email. I am becoming a big consumer of podcasts as I have discovered that listening to a podcast at work makes the day fly by. When I am just processing books, my brain is on automatic pilot so having someone talking to me is nice.